Looks like Amazon broke the links to listen to clips from many of the albums I posted. I will try to go through and fix it all, and link to youtube or something instead ..read more

Okay, time for some shameless self-promotion! An Arabic Jazz group that I created is working on recording an album, and if you're here, I think you may be interested in what we're doing.  Oud, trumpet, saxophone, bass, and percussion --what more could you want? Maybe if our funding goes over we can invite some surprise guests . . . Please visit our project page at Kickstarter to find out more about it: Nashaz New Album - Kickstarter Nashaz - Arabic Jazz ..read more

Dear readers, although I am no longer maintaining this blog, I plan to leave it up for archival purposes as long as Blogger remains active.  Going forward, I'm trying to consolidate more of my work in one place so I will be sharing more sheet music and posts related to the oud and Arabic music over on my website: https://brianprunka.com/words I'll also be sharing posts related to jazz, improvisation, guitar and possibly other things both music-related and not.  I hope you'll check it out ..read more

Originally from Beirut, Lebanon, Ibrahim Maalouf has lived in Paris, France since childhood. He belongs to the small club of musicians capable of playing microtonal music well on the trumpet. With the passing of Ergun Senlendirici, and the legendary Samy El-Bably, Maalouf and Amir ElSaffar are the most notable trumpet players using the instrument for maqam-based music. So it was with some excitement that I discovered that Maalouf had recently released an album with a pretty stellar jazz cast: Mark Turner, Clarence Penn, and Larry Grenadier. I hadn't heard of the pianist, Frank Woeste, but lis ..read more

I recently came across this album, a nicely balanced mixing of jazz and Arabic music.  Somewhat reminiscent of Rabih Abou-Khalil's music, but with more emphasis on traditional Arabic elements, especially with the oud playing.  I can't seem to find out much about the musicians.  Anyone know about them? I particularly enjoy the playing of Pardo and Nabil Khalidi.  Michel Bismut (double bass), Jorge Pardo (soprano saxophone), Nabil Khalidi (oud), Keyvan Chemirani (zarb, daf, gatam ..read more

This is the title piece of of Rabih Abou-Khalil's album "Bukra". The album has a bunch of great tunes and some particularly intense saxophone playing by Sonny Fortune. More info here ..read more

Bill Frisell is a unique musician, and probably the most immediately identifiable jazz guitarist of the past 30 years. He is constantly exploring new ensemble sounds and The Intercontinentals is a group that he put together to showcase the sounds of Africa and the middle east. Christos Govetas is a Greek oud player from Macedonia who plays in the Turkish style. I guess this is another one that doesn't qualify as "Arabic", but I bend the rules for any jazz with oud. This is a really good album, one that appeals to a wide range of people. Frisell reportedly conceived the project as a collaborat ..read more

<A HREF="http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?rt=ss_w_mpw&ServiceVersion=20070822&MarketPlace=US&ID=V20070822%2FUS%2Farabicsccom-20%2F8014%2Fa5fb78b4-83f1-4b72-a7d9-20b50dcb7488&Operation=NoScript">Amazon.com Widgets</A> Oud player Brandon Terzic has put together a great group of musicians, featuring jazzman Matt Darriau (of Paradox Trio fame) on saxophone, kaval, and other wind instruments. Also featured is Matt Kilmer, one of NYC's top percussionists, and Peter Slavov, who currently plays bass with the legendary saxophonist Joe Lovano ..read more

Souren Baronian is a tremendously talented Armenian-American clarinetist with extensive experience in both middle-eastern music and jazz. While his middle-eastern jazz music has influences primarily from Turkey and Armenia, and therefore isn't "Arabic jazz" exactly, I felt that the kinship of maqam-based music made it worthy of mention here. He studied with the reclusive jazz legend Lennie Tristano as well as the respected Turkish master Safet Gundeger, and has performed with many jazz greats like Carla Bley, Phil Woods, Paul Motian.  He leads Taksim, his group that presents an original ..read more

Here's another one by Rabih Abou-Khalil.  This is from al-Jadida (roughly, "the new thing"), the first album I ever heard of his. Enjoy!  <A HREF="http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?rt=ss_w_mpw&ServiceVersion=20070822&MarketPlace=US&ID=V20070822%2FUS%2Farabicsccom-20%2F8014%2F8998dfdb-96d3-47ac-8508-80bdffb5061f&Operation=NoScript">Amazon.com Widgets</A&gt ..read more